Alkene Metathesis Catalysis: A Key for Transformations of Unsaturated Plant Oils and Renewable Derivatives

This account presents the importance of ruthenium-catalysed alkene cross-metathesis for the catalytic transformations of biomass derivatives into useful intermediates, especially those developed by the authors in the Rennes (France) catalysis team in cooperation with chemical industry. The cross-metathesis of a variety of functional alkenes arising from plant oils, with acrylonitrile and fumaronitrile and followed by catalytic tandem hydrogenation, will be shown to afford linear amino acid derivatives, the precursors of polyamides. The exploration of cross-metathesis of bio-sourced unsaturated nitriles with acrylate with further catalytic hydrogenation has led to offer an excellent route to α,ω-amino acid derivatives. That of fatty aldehydes has led to bifunctional long chain aldehydes and saturated diols. Two ways of access to functional dienes by ruthenium-catalyzed ene-yne cross-metathesis of plant oil alkene derivatives with alkynes and by cross-metathesis of bio-sourced alkenes with allylic chloride followed by catalytic dehydrohalogenation, are reported. Ricinoleate derivatives offer a direct access to chiral dihydropyrans and tetrahydropyrans via ring closing metathesis. Cross-metathesis giving value to terpenes and eugenol for the straightforward synthesis of artificial terpenes and functional eugenol derivatives without C=C bond isomerization are described.